Industry Resources

Soap is a product that is a part of our daily lives. In India with such a vast population people belonging to different income levels use different brands. Scented or unscented, in bars, gels, and liquids, soap has very much entered our daily lives.

History of Soap in India

In the course of the British rule in India, the British Company Lever Brothers England introduced modern soaps by importing and marketing them in India. The North West Soap Company created the first soap manufacturing plant in India, in the city of Meerut, in Uttar Pradesh. In 1897, they started marketing cold process soaps.

The soap industry floundered during World War I, but after the war, the industry revived all over the country

Soap industry in Kerala

The first indigenous soap manufacturing unit of India was set up by Mr. Jamshedji Tata when he purchased OK Coconut Oil Mills at Cochin Kerala around 1918. OK Mills crushed and marketed coconut oil for cooking and manufactured crude cold process laundry soaps that were sold locally. It was renamed The Tata Oil Mills Company and its first branded soaps appeared on the market in the early 1930s. Soap became a necessity for the moneyed class by around 1937.

A soap manufacturing unit established in 1920 in Kozhikode and later came to be known as Kerala Soap Institute, where many literate people were being trained in soap manufacturing thereby making them self sufficient to start their own independent manufacturing units. The Kerala Soap Institute has become an institute of repute. It was Sir Frederic Nicolson who popularized the large scale use of coconut oil in soap manufacturing.

Gandhiji had envisioned Grama Swaraj to make the Indian villages financially independent and encouraged small scale soap manufacturing in the Indian villages using natural oils and caustic mixtures.

The small scale soap industry has by now gained a countable position in the commercial growth of Kerala. More than 1500 small scale units started functioning in Kerala but more than 70% are facing financial crisis and have closed down. The entry of multi-national companies in the soap industry has very badly affected the small-scale manufacturing units in Kerala.

What is the Criteria for becoming a member of KSSMA?

Those small scale units which are producing cleaning and all other soap items including cloth brighting and stiffening items are eligle to join as members of KSSMA